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KERLLComplete Harpsichord and Organ Music Matteo Messori Johann Caspar Kerll (1627-1693) Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music 1. Toccata prima* 4’27 Suite in D** Modulatio organica super Magnificat 2. Toccata seconda* 4’15 19. Allamande 2’34 octo Ecclesiaticis tonis respondens 3. Toccata terza* 5’12 20. Courante 1’14 (1686)**** 4. Toccata quarta (cromatica con 21. Sarabande 1’17 34. Magnificat Primi Toni 7’16 35. Magnificat Secundi Toni 7’33 durezze e ligature)* 4’21 22. Gigue 2’07 (Cantus planus: Magnificat – 36. Magnificat Tertii Toni 6’34 5. Toccata quinta (tutta de salti)** 4’12 Organum: Anima mea – Et esultavit 37. Magnificat Quarti Toni 7’06 6. Toccata sesta Suite in F*** – Versus Quia respexit – Quia fecit 38. Magnificat Quinti Toni 6’21 (per il pedale)**** 3’54 23. Allamande 2’48 – Versus Et misericordia – Fecit 39. Magnificat Sexti Toni 7’04 7. Toccata settima* 3’08 24. Courante 1’03 potentiam – Versus Deposuit – 40. Magnificat Septimi Toni 6’48 8. Toccata ottava** 4’24 25. Sarabande 1’23 Esurientes – Versus Suscepit Israel 41. Magnificat Octavi Toni 6’33 9. Canzone prima**** 3’26 26. Gigue 1’29 – Sicut locutus est – Versus Gloria 10. Canzone seconda** 4’27 – Sicut erat – Versus Ultimus loco 11. Canzone terza* 4’05 Suite in A minor** Antiphonae) 12. Canzone quarta**** 3’45 27. Allamande - Partita 4’40 13. Canzone quinta*** 3’11 28. Courante - Partita 2’14 14. Canzone sesta* 5’13 29. Sarabande - Partita 2’17 15. Ciaccona** 2’45 16. Passacaglia* 6’34 Suite in G** 17. Capriccio sopra il Cucu** 3’03 30. Allamande - Partita 4’51 Matteo Messori harpsichords and organ 18. Battaglia*** 9’50 31. Courante - Partita 2’54 * Italian harpsichord built by Romain Legros after an anonymous instrument preserved in 32. Sarabande - Partita 3’02 the Ca’ Rezzonico museum, Venice ** Italian harpsichord built by Romain Legros, copy after Giovanni Battista Giusti (Lucca 33. Rycercata in Cylindrum 1681) phonotacticum transferenda* 3’20 *** Harpsichord built by Barthélémy Formentelli after a South French anonymous instrument **** Organ built by Johann Ignaz Egedacher (1732), Pfarrkirche Mariä Himmelfahrt in Vornbach am Inn (Germany) Łukasz Dulewicz plainsong (tracks 34-41) Ore refers hominem, In features you represent a man but in contribution to the development of liturgical and secular music, the only way to dulci modulamine Numen, sweet modulation a divinity, proceed was to send its most gifted scion directly to the source. Orpheus aetatis diceris esse tuae. You are called the Orpheus of your age, In Rome Kerll probably got to know Johann Jakob Froberger, who had studied Austriacas mulces Aquilas, You charm the Austrian eagles and the under Frescobaldi and who was in contact with Carissimi and the Jesuit father Bavaròsque Leones: Bavarian lions, Athanasius Kircher, who was later to publish for the first time a piece by both Suspensons Italos, Teutoniámque tenes. and cheer Italians and Germany. German musicians in his Musurgia universalis (1650). In due course Kerll returned to his post in Brussels, which he held until his benefactor was forced to withdraw on account of ill health. There were other positions to be filled, however, and in 1656 Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria, Johann Caspar Kerll’s work reveals deep knowledge of the principle compositional appointed Kerll deputy Kapellmeister and then Kapellmeister in Munich. During this forms for keyboard and vocal music established in the first decades of the seventeenth latter period, as well as teaching Agostino Steffani, Kerll wrote a number of operas. century by exponents of Roman musical institutions such as Girolamo Frescobaldi, Although unfortunately only the librettos have come down to us, it is nevertheless harpsichord virtuoso and organist at St. Peter’s, and Giacomo Carissimi, chapel possible to form an idea of the style of the music by a comparative study of the sacred master at the church of S. Apollinare, which pertained to the Collegium Germanicum play Pia et fortis mulier. During the same period he also composed some splendid et Hungaricum. church music, such as the collection of sacred concertos Delectus sacrarum cantionum Kerll was born in 1627 in Adorf, in the hilly region in the southern part of the (1669) and numerous masses that combined innovative handling of the concertante Saxon Vogtland, bordering on Thuringia, Bohemia and Bavaria. His family were style and a distinctly experimental approach to counterpoint. As with his collection of Lutherans, and his father, an organist, saw to his son’s early musical education. The liturgical works for the organ, these compositions established him as one of the great boy’s outstanding musical abilities soon came to the fore: by 1641 he was already masters of the learned style of the second half of the 1600s. skilled in composition, which brought him to the attention of Archduke Leopold The performance of one of his masses during the coronation of Emperor Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, Emperor Ferdinand III’s brother, who paid for him to go to I in Frankfurt in 1658 gave Kerll an opportunity to show off his incredible talents as Vienna to study under Giovanni Valentini, the court Kapellmeister. In 1647 Kerll, a keyboard performer. Having received a subject from the sovereign himself, he duly who in the meantime converted to Catholicism, moved to Brussels at the behest of proceeded to improvise on this at the organ, thereby creating an event that became the Archduke, who in his role as governor of the Spanish Netherlands had appointed so famous as to be recalled yet again in 1740 by Johann Mattheson. Kerll’s great the twenty-year-old musician court organist. Approximately two years later Leopold gifts probably accounted for his elevation to the ranks of the nobility in 1664 at the Wilhelm, a great enthusiast of art and music, sent his favourite organist to Rome to behest of the Emperor. When he left his post in Munich in 1673, it was on account study under Giacomo Carissimi, who had previously refused to work directly for the of a major controversy with the Italian court singers, who simply could not and Archduke. So if the court in Brussels wished to absorb the novelty inherent in Rome’s would not accept the unusual intervals and audacious passages that disregarded the conventionally accepted rules of composition. to mythology and classicism to deplore the way his keyboard works and sacred That same year Kerll turned up in Vienna, although no documents exist that compositions often circulated with attributions to other musicians. For the first time might confirm an appointment as organist at St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Documentary in the history of music he provided a catalogue that he himself had compiled featuring evidence is also lacking to support the hypothesis that Johann Pachelbel, Georg the musical incipits of his harpsichord and organ compositions. The present recording Reutter the Elder and Johann Joseph Fux studied under him in this period. However, focuses on these very works, which speak eloquently for the 17th century keyboard we do have proof of his friendship with Alessandro Poglietti, whose daughter, Anna tradition of Italianate inspiration: eight Toccatas, six Canzonas, one Capriccio sopra Catharina Paulina, was christened in 1675 with Kerll acting as godfather. That same il Cucu, one Battaglia, one Passacaglia, one Ciaccona and four Suites. year Leopold I granted him a pension, and in 1677 employed him directly as one of Kerll’s keyboard music circulated extensively between the 17th and 18th centuries, his court organists. Sadly the Vienna period also coincided with two tragic events. considerably influencing a number of important composers. These included Johann In 1679 an outbreak of the Plague claimed almost 100,000 victims, who probably Pachelbel, Johann Krieger, Johann Speth, his pupil Franz Xaver Murschhausen, included Kerll’s first wife. It was in those very weeks that he composed his organ Georg Friedrich Händel, who adapted the entire fourth Canzona for the chorus masterpiece, the verses for the eight notes of the Magnificat, published in Munich in “Egypt was glad when they departed” in the Oratorio Israel in Egypt and used part 1686 with the title Modulatio organica. In 1683 the imperial city was besieged by the of the Capriccio Sopra il Cucu in the second movement of the Organ Concerto HWV Turks: the death of his friend and colleague Alessandro Poglietti must have been a 295, and Johann Sebastian Bach, who, according to Carl Philipp Emanuel, studied source of great grief to him, to judge by the Missa in fletu solatium that he wrote to Kerll’s keyboard works as a youngster and based the Sanctus BWV 241 on Kerll’s commemorate the atmosphere of those days. Missa superba. From 1683 Kerll was back in Munich, where in 1689 he published his most This recording is based on critical collation of over thirty sources. Some of these imposing work, the Missae sex, each one briefly described in the preface. The whole manuscripts are dated around the middle of the 1670s, which suggests that most of collection was dedicated to Leopold I, who was also a composer of sacred music. Kerll’s keyboard works, with the exception of the organ versetti and probably also the According to Wolfgang Caspar Printz’s contemporary account, Kerll may also Suites, date back to the first part of his career. have spent some time in Augsburg, but there is no documentary evidence to support Apart from the Suites, all the pieces clearly reveal the influence of Girolamo this. During these latter years Kerll also taught Franz Xaver Murschhauser, who was Frescobaldi, especially as conveyed by the printed editions of 1637. These innovations enormously influenced by him, especially as regards the organ versets contained in his blend with other elements of novelty introduced by Frescobaldi’s pupil, Johann Jakob Octi-tonium novum organicum (1696).

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